Introducing: Paradise Logic
A first look at Sophie Kemp's debut novel
PARADISE LOGIC is out next Tuesday from Simon & Schuster. Forever is hosting a celebration for this enchanting debut tomorrow night at Funny Bar in Lower Manhattan. Admission is free and open to the public; dress code is prom attire. There will be classical piano and other kinds of piano from Arthur Sillers and Zach Phillips. There will be a face painter. There will be something called a “Best Girlfriend Pageant” judged by a Jewish man.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase ahead of its release. Here’s a first look:
This was a peculiar time. I had to bathe often. I was acting like a child with an affliction. But I was certain that the future would show itself if only my spirit became clean. I needed to have a clean spirit. It needed to be cleansed. The dirty spirit. Cholera of the mind. And Emil’s tub was the place to do this — to cleanse.
I was at Emil’s house floating in his bathtub while he read to me.Emil was my friend because he was a marijuana merchant. Again: similar to bathing, I smoked the pot to cleanse my soul of any sort of negative properties. There were a lot of negative properties in my soul at this time.
Emil and I met on the train. We were the only two people who were not Hasidic Jews who got off at our stop. Emil looked like a classic punk rock type of guy: jeans with holes, T-shirt featuring a skateboarder clown, music playing at deafening tones. I was wearing an elegant floral chemise that I found in a box that said: FREE! PLEASE TAKE! NO BED BUGS!!!! I was listening to classical music of the most stunning variety at a loud volume on some earbuds I had slipped into a silk purse without anyone knowing, in a deli in one of those neighborhoods where all the babies are named something romantic and esteemed.
Example: Rebecca Stern
Example: Bunny Rabbit Jones
Example: Quanta Contra
As we were getting off the train he said: “Get a drink with me.”
And I responded: “I will accompany you to the local watering hole for the purpose of companionship and possibly sexual intercourse.”
Emil lived in an old Tudor that was falling apart. It was right next to an overpass, which was above a highway called the Prospect Expressway. This is known to be one of our greatest routes. This is known to be the Wall of Hadrian of the 21st c. There was a big wraparound porch. It had Tibetan prayer flags and big plants and hand-painted signs that said everyone’s political beliefs: Peace Love Unity Respect. All Are Welcome Here. Emil had eight to twelve roommates. It was a cooperative living situation where they all purchased nutritional yeast powder in four pound bags and all the girls had one long braid and armpit hair, and all the boys had tattoos of iconography like a hippo playing basketball. It was, I guess, Eastern Symbolism. Aesthetically, it was a bit confused. No one minded that Emil was dealing drugs from the house. Even though it was getting Faustian. Even though there was a severity to the exchanges of goods & services. They gave him reduced rent, on account of the fact that he gave everybody a little bit for free.
What Emil and I usually did is I would send him a correspondence via cell phone informing him that I would like to purchase some drugs, and then I would come over and he would read me magazines while I sat in the bathtub on the second floor. The bathtub was luxurious and claw-footed. This was decadence façon Reality. I would sit there in goggles and a Speedo racing suit. If the tub had been bigger then I certainly would have tried to do some strokes to promote health. Like the front crawl.
We did not have a tub in my apartment. We just had a shower and it always smelled like beans mixed with sulfur. Emil understood these horrors and was merciful. I was depressed by the tenement nature of my residence, but I guess a shower was better than if my only option was to crouch in the sink and let the water turn black. I had seen that happen in some literature. Everyone in the literature was sad.
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